Materia Medica by Kent

CISTUS CANADENSIS

(cist)

This remedy is an antipsoric, a deep-acting remedy. It runs very close to CALCAREA, but is milder in its action. It has the same exhaustion from exertion, dyspnoea, sweating and coldness that we find in CALCAREA.

What will forcibly call your attention to a remedy will be the curing of a bad and typical case. I remember the first time my attention was decidedly called to Cistus. I had put it on my list to study from time to time and had come to the conclusion that it was only a side issue, until a young lady, nineteen years of age fell under my observation. The glands of the neck were large and hard, the parotids especially; she had foetid otorrhoea; her eyes were inflamed and suppurating ; there were fissures at the corners of the eyes; her lips were cracked and bleeding, and she had salt rheum at the ends of the fingers. I could not make CALCAREA fit the patient, but after much study this little remedy seemed to be just what I needed; and although she had had an immense amount of Homeopathy, good and bad, this remedy cured.

The glands inflame, become swollen and suppurate. It causes caries and cures old ulcers. It has a scrofulous constitution. It is useful in chronic diarrhoea, with enlarged glands, even in those who are flabby, sickly and pallid and who cannot go upstairs without losing their breath. All the mucous membranes throw out a thick, yellowish, offensive mucus and hence it is suitable in old and troublesome catarrh. The chest fills up with mucus and he feels relieved after expectoration, but after he empties the chest it feels raw. It has eruptions, herpes, tetter, scaly eruptions, salt rheum on the hands and ends of the fingers, with cracking and bleeding of the fingers in winter and from washing in cold water.

All its complaints are worse from mental exertion. He is excitable. His cough, headache and pains are worse from mental exertion. Pains shoot from the head to the ear. Shooting, stitching, tearing pains in inflamed parts. Old discharges from the ear date back to eruptive diseases. He feels as if paralyzed after mental exertion, and mental excitement increases his sufferings, like CALCAREA and BORAX. If he is compelled to fast headache comes on, and like LYCOPODIUM, the headache will be relieved after eating. Frontal headache with coldness. In a warm room the perspiration comes out, and it is cold, and the more he sweats the colder he gets. Pain in the forehead with cold sweat, and the colder he gets the worse the pain becomes. Sick headaches and great prostration with the headache. Sensation of internal coldness of the forehead, especially in warm room. Pressing pain at the root of the nose with headache. The parotid gland is so much enlarged that it pushes the head to one side. The glands of the abdomen swell with chronic diarrhoea, and the swelling may be tuberculous. Enlarged glands, with or without eruptions.

All over the body there is a sensation of crawling; formication; tingling and creeping like ants, and no eruption. He scratches till the skin is raw trying to get relieved of the itching and prickling. Eruption upon the face; eczema. Eruptions about the ear.

Cold feeling or burning in the nose. This is difficult to distinguish. In acute coryza the nose fills up with thick, yellow mucus, and when this is blown out it leaves the nasal cavity empty, and there is irritation; one will say it is a rawness, another will say a coldness, and another will describe it as a burning. There is relief when the nose fills up again with mucus. In ARSENICUM the mucus in the nose is so acrid that it burns, but in ANT. C, AESCULUS, and in this remedy when the nose is empty there is a burning or rawness. The sensation of rawness, coldness or burning is caused by the inhalation of air. An epidemic of coryza was prevalent and this was the strongest symptom — the pain caused by inhaling cold air, great burning from inhaled cold air. But it is not in the acute coryza that we see the value of this remedy, it is in the old, chronic case, with thick discharge, and a cold feeling or burning in the nose when inhaling air; > inhaling warm air.

"Sharp shooting, intolerable itching and thick crusts, with burning on right zygoma." This remedy has cured lupus on the face. Caries of the lower jaw. Open, bleeding cancer on the lower lip. Lupus exedens. Pain in all the joints of the face. It cures old, deep-seated, eating ulcers about the ankle and shin, with copious acrid discharge, formication and swollen glands, aggravation from bathing, extreme sensitiveness to the open air, only comfortable when very warm.

The teeth have all sorts of disturbances; the gums settle away, the teeth become loose; scorbutic gums. The same cold feeling is described in the throat as in the nose — smarting and coldness. Mouth and throat full of mucus. The throat feels rough, as if full of sand. Dry spots in the throat. The throat looks glossy, shining as if varnished, in old atrophic catarrhs. Every cold settles in the throat. Hot air feels good everywhere. In old cases there is trouble with scrofulous glands, which are enlarged, and the patient wants the heat; goes to the register and turns the heat on, wants to feel the heat in the nose, throat and lungs. Patients going into tuberculosis have that desire for heat; chilly persons. They do not feel cold to touch, but they are cold subjectively, chilly. Hawking of gum-like mucus, especially in the morning, fauces inflamed and dry. Suppuration of the glands of the throat.

"Chronic induration and inflammation of the mammae. Left mamma inflamed, suppurating, with a feeling of fulness in the chest. Sensibility to cold air," with the inflamed glands. We see its tendency to produce enlargement of the glands, and this would make us think of it in growths with involvement of the glands all around. The glands of the neck are enlarged in lines, like knotted rope, as in Hodgkin's disease. Only a limited number of remedies have this knotting.

Itching of the skin and mucous membrane. The itching in the ear is not relieved by scratching, and the part is raw from the constant rubbing and scratching. The eyes constantly itch. In the throat there is continuous itching. In the chest there is a constant tickling, causing cough. At the anus and all other orifices there is itching, and the itching parts are rubbed until raw and bleeding.

Scrofula; swelling and suppuration of the glands of the neck. Eruption on the back like shingles. Scrofulous ulcer on the back. Burning, bruised pain in the coccyx, worse from touch. That is like CARBOAN., in which the coccyx burns when pressed on, especially after a slight injury in a nervous woman.

Tetter on the hands; blisters oozing after scratching. Diseases of the nails. Hard, thickened places on the hands of workmen, with deep cracks.

The febrile symptoms have not been sufficiently brought out. In chronic cases there is copious sweat with exhaustion. Night-sweats.